“Don’t worry,” Henry replied. “From here I let father’s sword do the talking.” He donned his mask.
Valerie tightened her grip on the weapon in her hands but had never felt more powerless.
Across the circle the Red Reaper drew his blade.
The lawyer, Blaise, lifted his hand and tossed a single silver coin to the ground, signaling the duel had begun.
Henry sprang into the circle and his opponent surged forward as well. Valerie’s heart went into her mouth as morning sun flashed from the blades and the two men met with a clash of ancient steel.
5
Unavenged
Valerie used to love watching her brother fight. There was a grace to the way he moved.
Lunge. Retreat. Parry. Riposte.
She had grown up in the shadow of his movements, eagerly following along as he would practice on the rear lawn of the manor house.
They had waged a thousand battles with one another as children, wooden swords clacking in the yard. She was fast but Henry was quicker. While they had acted out hundreds of noble victories, she had never really defeated him.
To Valerie, swordplay was a fun game, but she had lost interest as she grew. Henry turned it into art.
As the sound of blade on blade resounded across the plaza, more onlookers gathered around the circle of vehicles to see what was going on. Valerie kept her eyes locked on the two combatants.
Henry was moving with a furious energy, his sword flashing forward in bold attacks and deceptive feints. Valerie recognized many of his moves, but there were complex combinations of thrusts and master cuts she had never seen him employ.
She absorbed every scrape of their boots on the concrete, and each crash of the swords echoed in her ears.
It was evident that Henry was looking to end the fight quickly. Her brother’s opponent was on the defensive, at times deflecting Henry’s blows with millimeters to spare.
The ancient hand-and-a-half swords were heavier and sharper than university competition blades, but Henry wielded Durendal with confidence, switching from single to double-handed strokes with ease. Several times, Valerie cringed in expectation as it seemed the heavy cuts were sure to end with the Red Reaper losing a limb. But for minute after minute, steel only found steel.
The mask of her brother’s opponent revealed even less than Henry’s. The lenses of the black eye sockets were nearly flush with the rest of the mask, making it seem as though Henry was dueling a faceless wraith. The dark swordsman moved with precision, seeming to exert only the energy needed to avoid being impaled, though with the ferocity of Henry’s attacks, that required remarkable speed.
Henry’s face was mostly concealed as well, but Valerie could still see the fervor in his eyes, the way he focused and moved, guarding his position and continually pressing the attack.
The fight moved around the designated circle, the Red Reaper at times being pressed all the way to where a handkerchief had been dropped, but he never stepped out of the predetermined area for the duel. Each time Valerie felt certain that he would have to yield more ground and be backed out of the circle, he would feint and move, redirecting Henry’s attacks enough to buy himself more space to maneuver.
The swelling crowd around the fight grew louder. Cheers went up during the more furious thrusts. As the fight wore on, Henry found himself increasingly on defense. Sweat was staining his shirt now, and he paused longer between attacks to gain his breath. As he backed toward Valerie, she could hear his panting.
Jasper’s companions began to cheer and jeer with enthusiasm as the Red Reaper pressed the attack.
“You have this! Don’t let up!” Valerie shouted.
Her encouragement seemed to help. Henry spun away from the Reaper’s lunge and made a fearsome cut of his own that required the Reaper to drop and roll. Henry’s blow shattered a window on the neighboring limousine, causing a shout to go up from the crowd.
The Red Reaper was back on his feet, but Henry lunged for him, slicing the air as the man dodged and weaved. The swords met with a resounding clang as the Reaper regained his footing. Valerie held her breath as the two men began a bewildering series of counterattacks and parries. The blades moved so quickly that she couldn’t follow the individual movements. She could only wince and hold her fist to her mouth, her nails biting into her palm as she waited for a blow to land.
Henry let out a tremendous shout as he delivered a powerful combination of cuts that sent the Reaper staggering backward, but the retreat was only momentary. The masked man waited as Henry’s momentum carried him forward and unleashed a fierce upward cut that sent Henry’s blade high and wide. The Reaper brought his own sword back with a lightning-fast twist of his wrist and drove the point into Henry’s shoulder just below his collarbone.
Henry screamed and staggered backward. Durendal fell from his grip and clattered to the flagstones at his feet. He stumbled, his left hand finding his shoulder where his shirt was already blooming red with blood.
“Henry!” Valerie shouted, lunging forward to assist him, but her brother was already regaining his balance. He muttered curses under his breath as his fingers pressed to the wound, but he straightened up to wave Valerie off.
“I’m okay.”
Valerie let her hand fall to her side. He wasn’t mortally wounded, but they had lost. It was over.
She tore her eyes from Henry and back to his opponent. The Red Reaper’s shoulders had slumped with exhaustion. He lifted his sword and cleaned the tip before sheathing it in its scabbard. The voids that ought to be eyes found Valerie, lingering on her briefly, but then he turned back to the open door of the Blackbird where he had draped his jacket.
Jasper Sterling began to clap, a grin spreading across his face. The crowd around the circle likewise applauded.
“Now that was a fight!” Jasper strode forward, his eyes on Henry. “I have to say you had me worried.” He stooped and picked up Durendal from where it had fallen. “I’ve never seen anyone work my man so hard.” He turned to address the Red Reaper. “Maybe you’re softer than you look, huh, buddy? You’re supposed to be my ace.”
The Red Reaper donned his jacket and seemed to pay Jasper no attention. He adjusted the sword hanging at his hip, then simply crossed his arms.
“So damn serious,” Jasper said, turning to Valerie. “It’s tough always having to carry the conversation with these types.”
“This doesn’t change what you did,” Henry said.
“But it does change things for you, doesn’t it?” Jasper replied. He balanced Durendal in his hand, then held it up to catch the sunlight. He drew his own sword, Nocteflamme, and compared the two side by side. “Durendal. Sharpest sword in the world. Isn’t that the legend? I think I prefer my own. Still, yours will make a fine addition to the family collection.”
“That wasn’t part of the terms,” Henry said.
“No? I think I’ll take it anyway.”
“Over my dead body,” Henry said.
“Well, okay,” Jasper replied. He stepped forward and plunged Nocteflamme directly into Henry’s chest.
Henry’s eyes widened in shock.
Valerie reached for him. “Henry!”
Henry stared at the sword penetrating his ribs, his mouth moving wordlessly. Then he fell.
Valerie caught her brother in her arms, dropping to her knees as he crashed into her.
“Henry!” She grasped frantically at his chest, applying pressure to the wound. The gaps between her fingers welled with blood.
“Val,” Henry said. His hand reached for hers. She clasped his cold, already clammy fingers, then he coughed and spit a trickle of blood onto his chin.
The next moment, his head fell back into her lap, and he was gone.
The world froze in a monochromatic nightmare. The only color Valerie could see was red.
Her hands.
The stain across Henry’s face.
The tip of Jasper’s sword.
Her mind failed to reconcile the movement of time wi
th the reality she was seeing. A second ago, her brother was breathing. Twenty seconds ago, he was standing, full of life, fire in his eyes.
How could a few seconds become the difference between life and the destruction of her entire world?
“Henry,” she said, calmly this time as though to call him back gently from the realm of their imagination. A thousand times they had play-acted the ending to a thousand imagined battles. It was time to wake up.
“Henry!” This time she screamed it.
She looked up. There was a circle of shocked faces surrounding the ring of cars. Open mouths. Wide eyes. But no one moved. No one was helping. And Jasper Sterling was walking away.
Valerie’s body was no longer limited by conscious thought. It moved of its own accord.
Her mind was elsewhere, lingering in the past—a place before the last, inexplicable minute of existence—but her body sprang into action, crawling on hands and knees to the spot where she had dropped her sword. Yanking it free of its scabbard, she rose to her feet.
There was a noise coming from her throat, but it wasn’t words. It was a primal sound made of rage and pain and unadulterated hate.
He could not walk away.
She lunged after Jasper, arm lifted, sword raised. His back was to her, only a few feet separating them. She plunged the sword toward him. But he turned. His blade came up, caught hers and deflected it. Easily. Carelessly. Jasper Sterling was smiling.
Devils shouldn’t smile.
Devils shouldn’t live.
Valerie swung the sword again with both hands, aiming for the devil’s neck. Her blade vanished in a flash of light, struck aside by the weapon in Jasper’s hand. Her sword clattered to the pavement. A second later, his fist struck her in the eye, and she flailed backward into something hard and unyielding. Her head ricocheted off glass.
She wilted down the side of a limousine as though her legs had turned to liquid. The world was blurry and populated with tiny stars.
“See? Yet another forgettable member of a forgettable family.” His voice came to her through a fog.
Valerie managed to focus on Jasper, then saw the sword poised to skewer her.
She had to move.
Somehow, she needed to erase the last few minutes of this nightmare. She wanted to slay the devil in front of her with her eyes, but all she could do was watch as the blade plunged toward her chest.
Red.
A second sword crossed her vision and knocked away the first. Jasper’s blade penetrated the car door beside her head. Valerie focused on the red hilt of the sword that had intervened and followed the arm up to the face. The black mask with the crimson slash across the cheek. Her other enemy.
“Jasper. Stop. She’s underage.” The voice came from a third man. Blaise. Law School. He and Jasper’s other friends were grabbing his shoulders, hauling him back.
“The City Watch are here. We have to go!”
Uniformed officers pushed through the crowd, knocking aside bystanders with long-handled pole axes. One was wielding a mace.
“Hey! Break this up. What’s the meaning of this?” The armored soldier in the lead was doing the talking, waving his mace in everyone’s face.
Valerie shook her head and tried to clear her mind.
“…a legal duel. He was challenged as a matter of honor. Here are the signatures.” Law School brandished the contract. “The challenger’s second lashed out and tried to attack him after the duel. It turns out she’s underage.”
“And that one?” The watch captain pointed the mace.
“I believe he’s dead.”
Valerie’s eyes followed the movement and alighted on the figure on the ground.
Henry.
Clarity came back.
“Murderer!” The yell erupted from her lips. She pushed off the concrete and struggled to her feet. She had no weapon but she had fists. She would use anything she had to make him pay. She rushed Jasper with her teeth bared and her fingers stretching for his windpipe.
She was intercepted by two armored men who swept her back. She clawed at their arms, writhing and squirming, but strong hands wrapped around her wrists. Someone twisted her arm behind her back. She was swung violently to the side and slammed into one of the vehicles.
“Stay down!”
She wouldn’t stay down. She couldn’t. Not while Henry needed her. She needed to take it back, the lost minutes between now and when he had last spoken to her. He’d said her name. This was on her to fix.
Her sword was on the ground a few yards away. So close.
She slammed her elbow into the face of the man attempting to pin her to the car. He reeled and put a hand to his nose. It came away bloody.
She broke free of her captors and sprinted for the sword. A few feet more. Her fingers wrapped around the handle, and she turned, brandishing the weapon. She searched for her enemies, finding the Red Reaper. She focused on the black recesses of the nightmare mask staring back at her. He was ten feet away, watching.
Her scream of rage came from the void where her heart had been.
Then the handle of the mace came down on her head.
Her enemy’s masked face was now just a crimson blur fading into night.
The world tilted sideways on its axis, and everything went black.
6
Lock-up
There were sounds in Valerie’s brain that she couldn’t account for. Clomping feet. Rough voices. She tried to open her eyes but instantly regretted it. The ceiling was lopsided and much too bright.
Her left eye wouldn’t open all the way. She reached for it, and her fingers found a puffy, sore lump where her eye should be.
Someone was breathing. Loudly. Their breath smelled of onions and cigarettes.
Valerie opened her right eye and rolled onto her side.
The onion breather was a woman on a cot with a broad, leathery face. Her eyebrows presented a unified front across her forehead, uninterrupted by the demands of the large nose beneath. Despite its impressive size, it seemed the nose had been broken several times in its life. Valerie didn’t want to meet whomever had accomplished that feat.
She tried to sit up but had to pause midway to find equilibrium. She groaned as she made it the rest of the way to vertical.
Then she saw the blood. It stained her fingers—lodged beneath her nails and in the crevices of her palms. Henry’s blood.
She nearly choked on the sob that rose from her chest. The pain of realization made her gut clench. She tried to convince herself that it wasn’t real, but her hands showed the truth.
Henry was dead.
Valerie felt the eyes of the onion breather on her. Each of her choking gasps were being scrutinized. It was only for that reason she tried to pull herself together. If she was home in her own bed, she would simply dissolve into her misery. Here, wherever here was, she had even been deprived of that luxury.
She pushed herself off the cot and shuffled to the wall of iron bars that defined the tiny space she was in. Choking back her tears, she wrapped her fingers around the bars and shouted, “Hey! Somebody! Somebody let me out!”
Her call echoed down a corridor lined with a dozen other cells.
“They already looked at you.”
Valerie turned to find the onion woman staring at her.
“I shouldn’t be here,” Valerie said. “They’ve made a mistake. I’m not the one who’s the criminal.”
“Ain’t never made a difference before. When you’re in, you’re in.”
Valerie shook her head and pressed her hand over her swollen eye. “No. You don’t understand. I’m a noble. Daughter of a knight. Sir Henry Terravecchia.”
The woman’s eyebrow raised slightly, but she shrugged. “Ain’t no names that matter down here. This is the Underside.”
Valerie frowned and wiped her face, then continued her yelling down the corridor. All she got in response was angry shouts to shut up from other cells.
An hour later, someone finally approached t
he cell. Valerie had long since given up her shouting and retreated to the cot, but she rose again at the sound of footsteps.
“You’ve got a visitor,” the guard said before gesturing to his companion to open the door. He slapped his mace against his palm.
Valerie allowed herself to be shackled and led down the corridor to a room with a table and several chairs. When she saw the woman seated at the table, she rushed inside.
“Livingston! Thank God. You have to help me! Tell these men there’s been a mistake.”
Their family lawyer studied Valerie’s face. “You look even worse than I imagined.” She gestured to the chair opposite her.
“Henry,” Valerie said. “Jasper Sterling—”
“I know.”
“Did they arrest Jasper? He’s the one who should be locked up. Has the Watch brought him in?”
“The city prosecutor caught me up on the situation,” Livingston said. She gestured again for Valerie to take a seat. “I’m afraid the news isn’t good.”
Valerie eased herself onto the chair but sat on the edge of the seat. “What’s happening?”
“They won’t arrest Jasper Sterling. He has witnesses that affirm your brother challenged him to a duel to satisfaction, and he was within his rights to kill him.”
“That’s a lie!” Valerie exclaimed, exploding from her chair. “He’s lying. Henry never wanted a duel to satisfaction. It was a duel, but it was to first blood, and everyone knew it!”
“The magistrate is in possession of a document that says differently. It shows your brother’s signature and your co-signature and is clearly marked as a duel to satisfaction, meaning his death was within the bounds of the law.”
“That’s impossible,” Valerie objected. “I saw the document I signed. I know what it said.”
“Without any evidence to back up your version of the story, there’s no way to charge Jasper Sterling with murder.”
Valerie wrestled with her manacles, then pointed a finger at the door. “They’re lying to you. There were dozens of people watching. They all saw Jasper stab my brother after the fight was over. You can ask anyone!”
Sword Fight Page 6